Sunday, July 31, 2016

“There are seven things that will destroy us: Wealth
without work; Pleasure without conscience; Knowledge without character;
Religion without sacrifice; Politics without principle; Science without
humanity; Business without ethics.”

Mahatma Gandhi

There is a reason why we are suddenly
seeing extreme voices gain political footholds and their support grows
across every western democracy. The rise of Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Nigel
Farage, Geert Wilders, to name a
few, can only be explained by a failure of our societies.

I don’t
just mean the politicians and captains of industry, but each one of us must accept the blame. Divisive and extreme
people never rise up in a vacuum in stable democracies. They need oxygen
in order to rear their ugly heads, and unless we
provide this oxygen they cannot exist.

For me there is not a single moment or
event that led to their rise, but a cumulative
effect of years of small abdications in personal responsibility, erosion of
principles, a loosening work ethic, misplaced priorities and deteriorating
culture and values that have led to a social chasm that we see today.

Unlike generations before us, who were willing to roll
up their sleeves and get involved when they saw something wrong in neighborhoods, childrens'
schools, communities, governments and countries, I fear
we have become so distracted with finding ways to personally get ahead that we
have forgotten the basic social bonds and community relationships that are
vital to keeping us healthy, empathetic, tolerant and happy human beings.

I think there are big and small things that have
changed, in terms of how we behave, interact and function, that have resulted
in an erosion of the social glue that used to bond us more
tightly together, and these have contributed to the rise of the Trumps of the
world.

When America invades a sovereign nation without
provocation and the media and all of us stand by watching silently even when we
know it is wrong, we create room for Trump.

When kids use chalk to desecrate a public monument and
we say nothing to the parents because we think it is not our place to say
something, we create room for Trump.

When we are not outraged by our country ignoring the
Geneva Convention and circumventing the constitution to detain enemy combatants
without evidence or due process, we create room for Trump.

When we tune in to reality TV, knowing it glorifies
the ills of society and turns people who contribute nothing into celebrities
but excuse it as guilty pleasure, we create room for Trump.

When we sue doctors, police and our own families for
accidents or well-intended mistakes, not willful negligence, and suing becomes
a way to make a quick buck, we create room for Trump.

When we ignore professional courtesies, in business,
like refusing to get back to people when we have bad news to share because we
want to avoid confrontation, we create room for Trump.

When we stop going to Church, not for religious
worship but to connect with our neighbours, get involved in their lives and in
our community, and replace it with nothing, we make room for Trump.

When we become numb to the fact that there are two active
wars, and we stop honoring the sacrifice of those serving, ignore rising
military suicides and do nothing about the growing number of homeless vets, we
create room for Trump.

When we see someone being wronged or treated unfairly
and we look the other way because we do not want to get involved, we create
room for Trump.

When we force people to stop saying Merry Christmas
because we are worried about offending people, where no offense is meant, we
create room for Trump.

When we tell curious young college-going minds that
their feelings are more important than broadening their minds, by challenging
their worldviews and offending them in the pursuit of knowledge and creativity,
we create room for Trump.

When we desecrate works of literature and art because
we deem them offensive, we do a great disservice to humanity because you
cannot fix history by whitewashing it, but you do ensure that we learn nothing
from our past, and we create room for Trump.

When our President draws a red line for the use of chemical
weapons on civilian populations and does nothing when that line is crossed, we
create room for Trump.

When we allow legislation with far-reaching
consequences to be written by lobbyists and corporations and pass it without
knowing what thousands of pages contain, we create room for Trump.

When politicians spew vitriol, attack each other
personally, forego decorum, stop talking about the issues and we simply laugh,
take sides or join in, we create room for Trump.

When we get our news from the Daily Show and 24 hour
cable news that deliver information without objectivity, depth or a
well-rounded perspective and we also stop doing our own research, we create
room for Trump.

When we complain about the broken education system and
our child’s teacher but expect that the government should fix these problems
rather than that we get involved, we create room for Trump.

When educated people start to debunk sound scientific
and medical evidence using unverified articles and citing dubious sources with
previously discredited facts, we create room for Trump.

When we decide that the best way to compensate for the
excessive discipline our parents instilled and the constant no’s we heard
growing up is by over-indulging, mollycoddling and never saying
no to our kids (rather than finding the balance between those two extremes), we
create room for Trump.

When we start to see complex issues through a simple
black and white lens like GMO’s are good or bad and paint all cops with a
single brush, we lose sight of complexity and nuance and we create room for
Trump.

When we rename Tug of War to “Tug of Love” and stop
keeping score to portray a false sense that everyone is a winner, rather than
teach our kids that hard work, participation and effort count most (not just
winning) and explain that losing does not make you a loser, we create room for
Trump.

When we feel like we have performed a social service
and done some good in the world by simply LIKING a cause on Facebook or creating a hashtag, we create room for Trump.

When we go to the polls and vote blindly for the party
we have always supported rather than research candidates, study their positions
and understand their stances, we abdicate our most basic democratic duty and we
create room for Trump.

When we think live and let live means we should stay
silent when we see something wrong or disagree with someone, for fear of being
seen to judge or hurt their feelings, we create room for Trump.

People often ask me how America got here.

How has a man like Donald Trump been able to upend a
one hundred and sixty year old political party without a coup and managed to
garner much popular support along the way?

My answer is that he exists only because we
have given him the room to exist by retreating from our greater societal
responsibility.

We live in neighborhoods with like-minded people from
similar backgrounds, education levels, jobs and basic interests. In doing
so, we have shrunk our world so dramatically that we no longer listen or have
the ability to appreciate or understand any view that does not fit neatly into
our own little worldview. Even online and in social media we retreat and find
comfort only in our own echo chambers.

Think about the mix of people you grew up around, even
in your own family; it was a broad swathe of lower to upper middle class, blue
collar and white collar. Our neighborhoods had everyone from post office
workers and handymen to mid-level executives at IBM and AT&T. This is no
longer true.

Today, it has become easier for us to forget large
segments of people in our society as we have become more isolated and divided
based on income, education, skill level and race.

We have stopped learning and growing, and most importantly we have stopped building empathy for
people and alternate views outside of our small, safe and like-minded worlds.

This has been our collective failure and until we fix
our broken social divides and start to fill the local and community voids again
we will continue to see men like Trump thrive in the vacuum we have created.